GIS for a changing health landscape, link
Open Source/Science’s Greatest Need Is … Non-Scientists?, link
Interview with Isaac Holeman of FrontlineSMS:Medic, link
New Female Condom Campaign Set for Uganda, link
Sending out a (Google) SMS in Uganda, link
IDEO Ripple Effect at the Water Summit India, link
Africa Could Feed and Fuel the World, link
Web 2.0 Goes Bollywood-for GOOD, link
Brickmakers and Human Rights in Pakistan, link
Debating Which Aid Works Best is to Miss the Point, link
Who’s in charge of global health spending? link
Poverty tourism is getting a lot of attention lately, link

Bonus: Recycling Solutions
In Mali turning plastic bags into paving stones, link
Global recycling efforts, link
Is paper better than plastic? link
For the do it yourself’ers a plastic laptop bag, link

Related articles by Zemanta

• Designing useful mobile services for Africa (googleblog.blogspot.com)
• 5 US Cities and States Fighting Plastic Bags, 5 Cents at a Time (treehugger.com)
• Uganda’s Appfrica Labs (whiteafrican.com)
• Location Based Services in Uganda using SMS. (mobilewellbeing.info)

Image courtesy of kiwanja.net

Late last week I read news from three different sectors, all about “South-North” innovation transfer, a topic we’ve discussed here before, particularly in the context of mHealth. Earlier this year Fast Company reported on the concept of trickle-up innovation, citing the examples of yogurt microplants in Bangladesh (Group Danone, Grameen Bank) and Mosoko, touted as Craigslist for the next billion in Kenya (Nokia). In addition to these cases of MNCs from the global North testing out concepts in the South, Fast Company presented examples of corporations from the South, including ICICI (banking, India), Natura (cosmetics, Brazil), and Goodbaby (infant products, China).

Here are the three articles from this past week:

1. HEALTH SERVICES: To Fix Health Care, Some Study Developing World, Wall Street Journal, 2 Jul 2009. The University of Alabama-Birmingham AIDS clinic turned to Zambia for a model of increasing the number of patients who showed up for treatment. Based on early successes, they are continuing under the project name “Zambama”.
2. FINANCIAL SERVICES: DOCOMO to Launch Mobile Remittance Service, NTT DOCOMO press release, 2 Jul 2009. Later this month Japan’s DOCOMO will enable individual subscribers to use their mobile phone to remit money to other subscribers. Such a branchless banking/financial remittance service is certainly prompted by Safaricom’s M-PESA service from Kenya.
3. CLEAN TECH: Worldchanging Interview: Shawn Frayne, 2 Jul 2009. The interview is about wind technology, but touches on broader issues related to South-North innovation flow. Frayne thinks that “the constraints of the developing world can provide the necessary inspiration to make significant technological leaps that can benefit the Global South and Global North simultaneously”.

There are various other examples from the last several years suggesting a growing trend in countries from the North learning from the South. Here are examples just around financial services for the poor:

• Opportunity NYC was the first conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in the U.S., based on the Oportunidades program developed in Mexico.
• Less than one month ago international development micro-lender Kiva launched a pilot program in the U.S.
• Grameen Bank supports microcredit in places like Norway

Add to that the various management principles we’ve learned from the Aravind Eye Care System and Mumbai’s dabbawallas. Extending the argument presented by Fast Company, these examples show that South-North innovation transfer doesn’t have to be focused on corporations.

While it’s enticing to think about mining untapped innovation potential in the South for the benefit of the North, the real potential is much broader. Innovation can (and does) flow in all directions, not just South-North, but also North-South, South-South, and within countries. The challenge is to learn from different ways of approaching the same problem. Or even similar problems: see how Kaiser-Permanente visited a flight school to reduce medication errors and how the NHS worked with Formula 1 team to improve ICU procedures.

Given this potential, the big, open question is this… How do we increase global sharing of ideas and models to spur innovation?

1. Secret global health gathering underway, link
2. Fauci: New TB research agenda desperately needed, link
3. Fighting TB in the mountains of Lesotho, link
4. Photographs from the TB front-lines, link
5. Calls for strengthened lab capacity, service delivery and better policy, link
6. Newsmaker: Seeking partners in Russia to fight MDR-TB, link
7. The question of universal access for TB patients, link
8. At MDR-TB summit’s end, expressions of frustration, link

Related articles by Zemanta

• Data on investigational drug TMC207 for MDR-TB published in New England Journal of Medicine (scienceblog.com)
• How Bill Gates caught the global health bug (crosscut.com)

Can Yogurt Slow the Spread of HIV?

12 Jun 2009

Scientist Gregor Reid joins The Takeaway to talk about his work with HIV patients in Africa. He has helped teach a group of ‘yogurt mamas’ in Tanzania how they might serve up disease protection one cup at a time.

Play:

Quote from the podcast: “We have changed from a human spieces that ate a lot of plant foods to food with essentially no organisms at all because we are so paranoid about getting sick.”

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Possibly Related Posts:

• What We’re Reading 5/27/09 (one.org)
• Visiting HIV Clinics in Ghana (one.org)
• HIV in South Africa ‘levels off’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Albino trials begin in Tanzania (news.bbc.co.uk)

Menlo Park, CA – infoZine – With attention to global health rising on the U.S. policy agenda in recent years, the Kaiser Family Foundation launched a set of new resources, providing U.S. policymakers, non-governmental organizations, journalists and others working in the global health arena with timely information, including daily news summaries, a policy tracker tool, and original research and analysis.

The new Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, synthesizes daily coverage from more than 200 news sources pertaining to U.S. policy discussions and debates on global health, including relevant news from around the world. The daily report will cover HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, nutrition, water and sanitation, polio, and maternal and child health, as well as funding, financing and health systems.

“In the coming weeks, we will be launching a volume dedicated to issues related to Health and Growth. The volume is co-edited by Nobel Laureate Michael Spence, and World Bank Advisor Maureen Lewis. It features contributions by Sir George Alleyne, David Canning and David Bloom, Simon Johnson and Hoyt Bleakley, among others.  Topics include Early Life Nutrition, Disease and Development, and population health.”

Check out their latest provocative piece:

Health and Growth: A Heretical View?
Submitted by David Weil on Tue, 06/16/2009 – 11:23.

“In East Java, Indonesia lies Kawah Ijen volcano, 2,600 meters tall (8,660ft), topped with a large caldera and a 200-meter-deep lake of sulfuric acid. The quietly active volcano emits gases through fumaroles inside the crater, and local miners have tapped those gases to earn a living. Stone and ceramic pipes cap the fumaroles, and inside, the sulfur condenses into a molten red liquid, dripping back down and solidifying into pure sulfur. Miners hack chunks off with steel bars, braving extremely dangerous gases and liquids with minimal protection, then load up as much as they can carry for the several kilometers to the weighing station. Loads can weigh from 45 to 90kg (100 – 200 lbs), and a single miner might make as many as two or three trips in a day. At the end of a long day, miners take home approximately Rp50,000 ($5.00 u.s.). The sulfur is then used for vulcanizing rubber, bleaching sugar and other industrial processes nearby.” The Boston Globe

“In the Science and Technology Division of the Inter-American Development Bank we are looking to support the implementation of pilot projects that use innovation to improve the quality of life and the economic and social inclusion of People with Disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. You can apply for funding (for up to US$ 50,000) by submitting your proposal by June 30, 2009. “

Check out their blog and the full announcement.

On a related note, check out the University of Washington’s own initiative in the same area.